It is the fourth Thursday in November, a long weekend is ahead to spend time with family, friends, and food. For a lot of families, it doesn’t end just there. Thanksgiving involves competition through a sport or game of some sort.  

Thanksgiving Day at 8:00 am Ellen Tran (‘19)  spends her morning at Stipek park with friends and neighbors. They all gather there for the annual ‘Turkey Bowl.’

Some competitors attend underprepared with their slick Nikes, others slightly over prepared with their cleats, but all come ready to consume of “a ton of doughnuts and hot chocolate.”

At the Turkey Bowl, multiple games of “flag football and two-hand touch” are played and it “does get competitive” as Tran describes. The neighborhood friends are devoted to the tradition.

“Last year it poured” but the neighborhood friends “play no matter what.” Tran hopes that this tradition will continue well into the future.

Sophia Endicott (’21) starts her day more traditionally with a “mix of traditional and Hawaiian foods,” but the food is not the only thing that makes the Endicott family’s Thanksgiving “the best.” It is the competition between the cousins that goes on until late into the night.

Endicott shares, “It would be completely dark outside and our cousin would say, ‘Let’s go outside and play soccer.’”

The games they play are “very informal,” at times have five cousins go against one, to even out the talent. With cousins ranging from 12 to 31, there is “never a dull moment when we all get together.”

As shown by members in the Bothell High School community, Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to spend time with family, play soccer at midnight and participate in a ‘Turkey Bowl.’